Local people: former One Agency Fairy Meadow owner Sally Absalom

This month, One Agency is celebrating 10 years in Fairy Meadow. The business was started by Sally Absalom in the current Shop 3/19-21 Princes Highway, Fairy Meadow location.

Sally and current owner Joanne Danckwardt talk about the early days of real estate, how the industry has changed, and where they see things moving in the future.

What made you want to get into real estate in the first place?

Sally: It was a significant life event change. So I moved back to Wollongong from Tasmania and I decided to apply for a job in real estate.

Joanne: ​​I had been in sales for a long time, but I had sold things like I worked for Peters Ice Cream, so I sold ice cream and then I went into Kambrook and so I was selling electrical appliances and vacuum cleaners. I thought, 'I can do sales. What more could I sell?' I thought, well, I don’t mind houses (laughs). But I thought, no, I’d like to sell bigger ticket items. So that’s how I got into it. When I started, it was almost 30 years ago and I was employed to help buyers. So I was actually a buyer’s agent.

How did you come to start up the Fairy Meadow branch of One Agency? What appealed to you about Fairy Meadow?

Sally: The real estate industry has an annual conference called AREC (Australian Real Estate Conference). It was on the Gold Coast and I was talking to a girl there who talked me into it basically. There was a lot more freedom to what you could do.

Why did you choose this particular location and building?

Sally: With One Agency, you get a postcode. So I thought that's where I was pretty well known and I wanted the location of the highway.

For the both of you, it was rare in the early days for females to be real estate agents. What was that time like for both of you?

Joanne: It was really good for females to come into the industry. But I think it took the guys aback. I don't know about the office that you were in, but I was with three male directors and they hadn't had females in the office.

Sally: I remember putting my photo on my business card and the guys were like "what are you doing that for?"

Joanne: It was tough. I was four months pregnant before I told my directors that I was pregnant with my son because I was really worried about what they would do. And they employed another person within one week, because they all said their wives had terrible pregnancies and they judged me on that. And I never had any time off during my whole pregnancy. I worked right up to probably a week or two weeks before he was due.

How did clients react to having a female agent back then?

Sally: They liked it. I think we listened better. The vendor would just finish telling the story of the house and they’d (male colleague) ask a question about the thing they’ve just finished telling them about. They weren’t listening.

Joanne: I found it really easy to relate to both parties. Did you find that? And I think I understood both parties. All the men cared about was garaging, the yard and how much is it going to cost me. That's really the only questions they were concerned about. But women, they wanted to see where the kitchen was and could they look into the backyard from the kitchen. Where are the bedrooms located? Is the master near the other bedrooms for the children. How many bathrooms? Completely different idea on what was important to them.

Sally: The people selling, they’ve always got a story about the house. There’s that emotion.

What about house prices and interest rates, which are hot topics at the moment. What do you remember of those early days?

Joanne: Do you remember the 19% interest rate?

Sally: Yeah, I had one (laughs).

Joanne: Today is nothing compared to what it was like back then.

Sally: And prices are different now. It’s always been peaks and troughs. And as they always say, never buy in a boom.

You two worked together, when you Sally owned the business. What memories do you have of that time?

Sally: There was a lot of debriefing.

Joanne: Yes, it’s true. Because nobody understands it.

Sally: You need to talk to somebody who understands it, and someone aside from your partner. Their eyes glaze over (laughs).

Joanne: It's a high stress environment. There's a lot that goes on, there's a lot of pressure to get it right, to please people. You want to get it right, you want to do your best and you want to get the best result you can. And so there's pressure and you need to be able to talk things through.

Sally: We had some fantastic auctions too. We’d come from a company that taught us really all about the auction process and we continued in that same vein.

Joanne: The other thing, talking about AREC, I think we embraced a lot of things as well from AREC. So that was a really great educational environment, but it also exposes you to all the things that are coming. And if you're an early adopter, and I like to be an early adopter, then you reap the benefits

Speaking of changes, what have been some of those changes in the industry that you've seen?

Sally: The marketing is really important and so having the internet and videos of properties, there’s so much more effort goes into videos and styling properties.

Joanne: It’s a lot different to what it was.

Sally: The presentation is so important. People make a decision within a few minutes. If you don’t get that right, you’re doing a disservice to the property.

Joanne: It wasn’t just the internet, but having computers too. I worked in other sales industries which had computers in the business. I came into real estate and I felt like I'd gone back 10 years because they had no computers. So I had the little box.

Sally: Yes, the card system.

Joanne: So when a new property came on, you’d get your little cards out and you’d look through all your notes and you give them a call and then you pop them in your car. But I love those days because you really got to know the client.

Sally: In Wollongong, there used to be a very strong Estate Agents Co’op. We used to get together every Wednesday - all the agents. We’d get on a bus and we’d go out and look at every listing. Then there’d be a fight to get back to ring everybody to get that person there first.

Joanne: One of the biggest changes, I feel, is we had all the knowledge. That’s shifted now because of the internet. Now, everybody has the knowledge with what’s going on. So you’re not employing an agent for their past knowledge on sales, you’re employing them for other reasons - like their negotiation skills, marketing.

Sally: It’s being able to give the vendors the right advice. Especially being able to prepare their property for sale.

What would you like to see happen in real estate in the future?

Sally: I guess you’d want to see people trust you. Getting clients to trust you is very important. If you don’t have that, it’s too hard.

Joanne: I think that everybody talks about technology and technology has been fantastic and we're really benefiting from it. However, my belief is it’ll never replace the agent because it's such a personal thing buying a house. You go through a lot of emotions and I don't think that a computer or an iPad or a virtual tour or anything like that can replace the actual agent and that interaction. And even if people can do a lot of things themselves, buyers don't like dealing directly with the seller. So I think we will always have a place.

To talk to Joanne about any of the topics from within the interview with Sally Absalom - whether buying or selling - phone (02) 4285 7400.

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